reporting on the condition of being human (in america) to the home planet: September

some people are on to me

the crank-wanker at the bus stop who repeatedly asked for change, and didn’t understand when i explained i’ll have nothing to do with his campaign slogans. then he stared at me and stared at me and said “who are you?” and smelled my undercover, and luckily the 20 arrived exactly then.

pamphleteers with their prophets, ornery white and usually dead and likely unable to speak the important follow up question: “Can’t you take a joke?” she cornered me on burnside with her fat stack and drowned expression and little dog occupying a baby stroller and announced her own salvation. hidden gills tickled and i scratched while her lips cast calculations so i slithered before her math found my matrix.

merry wanderers who notice the stars in my eyes and the eyes all over my body, iris to iris with other eye-pods accurately detecting the skipping spinning of my soft insides. we greet in clicks and shake mitts and post walk-away the hooks remain.

still: most are not on to me.

television is very important here

when the hovering ships the US government assures have never been identified arrive, many will be glued to their televisions waiting for someone on the other side of the mystical talking box to confirm the testimony of their senses.

while the nail biting meat is sufficiently occupied, those who have electrostimulated their unmentionables will assume the lotus position and levitate for entry. don’t worry: the few witnesses will likely be written off by uncolorfuls as white-light purple-shroud finger-twirl-by-the-temple acid-popping sky-is-falling psychonauts, or rambling hyperactive unmedicated children in need of a time-out and an older, more glasses-wearing therapist. In the morning those uncolorfuls code crazy will simply be gone. Poof.

television is very important.

day jobs occupy time

this joke is at least as good as the one that begins with a prophet and some pamphlets. after taking out fake money from fake government to go to real school to memorize faulty theories, individuals work meaningless jobs they attended college to avoid to make barely enough fake money to return to the fake government. because they owe them.

captured: a reflection in a pool of water. only the water is real. i tell them. they don’t believe me.

so i tell them it’s television, and if what they’re watching is dull they can turn it off. they say, “what else would I do with my time?” I’m not sure how to answer this.

television is very important.

sound is a strange thing

some humans restrict the experience to ears and fail to activate the sensors sleeping in exposed hair follicles. a cello isn’t simply drunk in a eardrum, it runs a track up arms and over skull and wraps string tight around throat until eyes water mercy. voice isn’t simply a means of message delivery, it’s the creation of a heart egg perfect and warm before slow hatching. each individual accent scaling jagged cliff sides and rolling down green hills and coyote hopping fences and dumping tea in harbors and dipping into great lakes and crawling off pan handles eating hotcakes and collared greens. every cracking knee and whispered judgment and falling down laugh presses me closer to overwhelmed, tips the scales a single weight further into wow.

when my own voice hunts for sound escape, words chosen so each syllable enunciated matters, it’s then i notice how few spend time on the business of listening. No, not until they’re aware of some absence, only longing activates neglected drums and the instruments that accompany them, and only then do they open a little for the greater a-ha.

they’ll never hear us coming.

crows continue to be a nuisance

closest to angels are crows, the closest to flying humans are pigeons. mating of these two beings produces a dumb crow, wandering into the road head bobbing to earth pulse. stand by for the coming 18 wheeler. a fellow other-thing asks if that’s what i am under this exoskeleton – a dumb crow. Gabriel assures me there’s a compliment in there.

two on the wire, waiting. mated for life, nearly toppling the upper branches of a nearby tree with the volume of their night time roost.

they definitely are on to me. good thing no one is listening.

americans like to burn books

words are sacred, pressed into the offerings of trees and preserved for some period of time before they are boiled down to catch phrases and pressed into pamphlets. humans show disdain for one another by burning their favorite books and melting words away. these humans don’t know the internet exists and the books they are burning have already been scanned and are being actively distributed for free, as we speak, by THE GOOGLE. some are very upset by this development. now they’ll never burn all the copies. it’s book immortality, until the internets fail us, and free knowledge until a student loan is required for access.

other ways to know immortality

across the street from the bus stop a black woman wearing house shoes and a long flowing skirt and a pink sweatshirt walks a slow procession on the sidewalk, cradling a life-sized doll dressed as a bride on her big day. each step fluid and perfect, dedicated transient approaches with extended hand to inquire about contribution. the doll, not the woman, turns into the outstretched paw and offers the soliciting an answer.

this is better than television.

my ears tell me to turn up the sound. she has opted for immortality, to color pamphlets conjured around book-fed bonfires by those too afraid to say her name seven times in a pool of water.

i listen, and the doll tells me it’s love of death informing every waking action executed with an eye on the end. informing disrespect for the ocean, a need to hasten the apocalypse so all standing around can see the spectacle. not enough to color it black with oil, why not drip it in blue paint so children wander our terrified and Avatar dyed? why not speed our evolution with skin burnt red and eyes stone flat?

she keeps walking, on to something and way beyond me. and i remember: nothing carries sound like water.